Pat Buchanan is an embarrassment to public discourse.
He is an (1) angry (2) old (3) white (4) man who cannot stop spouting racist nonsense.
He is emblematic of the group that has long held power in our society and knows this power is slipping from its grip. We are talking the long slow death of the patriarchy, for one thing. And the inevitable diminution of white colonial dominance over people of color (a noxious phrase as we all have color, but "pink dominance" does not have established historical overtones, etc.). Very few are those who willingly let go of power. Jesus and Buddha come to mind but the examples are still rare.
Buchanan is not alone. The (1) angry (2) old (3) white (4) men of the Senate cannot get past having to deal with a non-Anglo female put forth to be on the highest court of the land. They also seem incapable of grasping that they are products and beneficiaries of a system that privileges their gender, age, and color of skin. They think their experiences and perspectives are, and should be, the norm.
They are freaking out. They are panicked. They are angry. They know they are cornered and they are vicious.
We all need to acknowledge that what they are spouting is racism, hatred, ignorance, bigotry, and division. They are tearing this nation down, not building it up. When they spout this hateful bullshit they should be told to their faces that it is bullshit and they are spouting racism. The time for letting them get away with this by being "nice" is past. Fuck polite, folks, we need to call a spade a damned shovel if we are to have any hope of breaking through denial to reality.
Of course, they are accusing their victim, a classic ploy of abusers.
Count on it. If Republicans are denouncing something loudly, you know they are doing it. These days they are crying "racism" when speaking of Judge Sotomayor.
As we say in Spanglish circles, "Por fa-fucking-vor."
So, Pat, a suggestion. STFU. We don't need your angry thought pollution. It endangers our children, eats away at our societal structure, and is just plain bad for the planet, the nation, and your own soul.
I received the following on a listserv today and will preserve the anonymity of the writer.
Yesterday I took the time to do early voting. ...
There was a line, and immediately behind me was a Hispanic gentleman in his 50s and an Anglo couple probably in their early 60s. The hispanic guy was quite pleasantly animated and spoke of his excitement because Hilliary was coming to El Paso the next day. The Anglo woman then said, "Maybe someone will assassinate her finally." "We", she proclaimed, "are proud, Christian Republicans and under no circumstances could we vote for the nig, ugh, black man for president of this great nation."
I was rendered quite speachless, and took quite a while to regain my composure. She went on to proclaim how much she didn't trust compter voting becuase it was too easy to cheat and not record her "right" vote.
By that time I was ready to say something but my time was up to vote.
Goodness! I know there is a lot of fear abroad these days, but that kind of invective and hate and fear I have not encountered in quite a while. I pray not to hear and witness it again ever.
Pax,
Racism is alive and well and has long been at the core of Republican strategy.
That sort of "proud" needs Jesus' own backhand, if you ask me, which you didn't. --the BB
Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they're questioning its content, its fullness.
She has raised the issue of what Hunter has rather aptly called "the eugenics of patriotism":
Is that not what we are speaking of here, in the most circuitous possible of ways: the pedigree of the man, the suspicious ethnicity, the unnerving multiculturalism? Are we not speaking of the eugenics of patriotism, patriotism as inherited, bred trait? Because if we are not, by what metric are we taking the measure of such things, and is getting teary-eyed at the mention of gold prospectors truly the test to be administered?
Noonan raises the most absurd question, one I can only make sense of it in terms of the worst jingoistic racism:
Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama's problem. America is Mr. Obama's problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men's Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There's gold in that history.
In contrast:
John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa's knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92.
So, growing up in Hawaii doesn't count because it's not really America? (Where was McCain born? Oh yes, Panama.)
Hunter goes on:
Noonan offers not a single element of evidence to support her hypothesis that the patriotism of one candidate needs evaluation, but that of the other two does not. It is a hypothesis not simply devoid of fact, but devoid even of blind assertion: there is no anecdote given to support the theory. There is no past event to be pointed at, or suspicious phrasing to be parsed, or even hushed conspiracy theory. Noonan at no point, during her channelling of the American psyche, offers even one thin word towards explaining why Obama's patriotism needs questioning: she merely asserts that it does, in comparison with the candidate that "carries it in his bones," and "learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa's knee."
The crux in Hunter's analysis?
Does Barack Obama, in other words, as a black man who grew up exposed to different cultures, from Hawaii to Jakarta to Harvard to Chicago, have the genes for true patriotism?
You can read Hunter's fine dissection of Noonan's twaddle here.
Noonan's lofty perch for all this?
So: Pennsylvania. As seen from the distance of West Texas, central California and Oklahoma, which is where I've been.
Well, Ms. Noonan, I was born and raised in central California. I have grapevines in my New Mexico back yard to honor the soil from which I come. My uncles were farmers and I have fruit trees in my yard too. Just because you have visited these places doesn't mean you ever took your head out of your ass the clouds where Henry Ford brought us the model-T but was not a Jew-hating Nazi sympathizer. I feel nostalgia for how my father felt about those early Ford automobiles but you can bet I don't get misty thinking about Henry Ford.
This pissed me off so I must be a snooty lefty, and believe me, I am damn proud to be one. I fly the flag proudly. I cry when I hear the national anthem. I read and re-read the Constitution. I honor and support our troops whether I support any given war or not. I hold the government accountable because I believe in government of, by, and for the people. Question my patriotism and damn right I get angry. Publish codswallop like this - with its endless, baseless speculation and obvious inferences - and it ticks me off. What a disingenuous pantload you dumped on America's doorstep, Ms. Noonan!
Peggy Noonan should never again be taken seriously except as a widely published threat to common sense and rational discourse.
Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the presidential campaign of the Junior Senator from New York.
By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton — and the Senator’s mother, and the Senator’s brother — were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger.
My gratitude to them is abiding.
Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama’s nomination, nor suggesting it is inevitable.
Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything.
Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro… your own advisors are slowly killing your chances to become President.
Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.
In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.
You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation.
But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.
As Shakespeare wrote, Senator — that way… madness… lies.
You have missed a critical opportunity to do… what was right.
No matter what Ms. Ferraro now claims, no one took her comments out of context.
She had made them on at least three separate occasions, then twice more on television this morning.
Just hours ago, on NBC Nightly News, she denied she had made the remarks in an interview — only at a paid political speech.
In fact, the first time she spoke them, was ten days before the California newspaper published them… not in a speech, but in a radio interview.
On February 26th, quoting…
“If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this, as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he’s in? Absolutely not.”
The context was inescapable.
Two minutes earlier, a member of Senator Clinton’s Finance Committee, one of her “Hill-Raisers,” had bemoaned the change in allegiance by super-delegate John Lewis from Clinton to Obama, and the endorsement of Obama by Senator Dodd.
“I look at these guys doing it,” she had said, “and I have to tell you, it’s the guys sticking together.”
A minute after the “color” remarks, she was describing herself as having been chosen for the 1984 Democratic ticket, purely as a woman politician, purely to make history. She was, in turn, making a blind accusation of sexism — and dismissing Senator Obama’s candidacy as nothing more than an Equal Opportunity stunt.
The next day she repeated her comments to a reporter from the newspaper in Torrance, California.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
And when this despicable statement — ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context — when it floats outward from the Clinton campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do?
Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline… on Jackie Robinson Day… about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barack Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan?
Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama’s…
…while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President?
Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House?
Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks?
Or Richard Nixon… fourteen… and Calvin Coolidge 25?
Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power — gone by sunrise after she used the word “monster” — and have Senator Clinton say, “this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for,” while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign?
No.
Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.
And she should then call, “regrettable”, words that should make any Democrat retch.
And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to ’stick to the issues,’ and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama’s fault.
And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton’s campaign back into the vocabulary… of David Duke.
“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.
“Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white.
“How’s that?”
How’s that?
Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb?
Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly twenty years ago?
Quote:
“President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”
So… apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old?
Apart from rendering ridiculous, Senator Clinton’s shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice President?
Apart from this evening’s resignation letter?
“I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.
“The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you.”
Apart from all that?
Well. It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap… ignorant… vile… racism that underlies every syllable…
And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance.
Senator Clinton:
This is not a campaign strategy.
This is a suicide pact.
This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the “commander-in-chief threshold”…
But — he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.
But you’d only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.
But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.
Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough, now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign’s initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her — now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now “speak for herself” about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota…
If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.
Do you not see, Senator?
To Senator Clinton’s supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness…
And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns — a disturbing, but only borderline remark, after what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A-M” ad… a disturbing — but only borderline interpretation…
And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama’s religion — a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness…
After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern… false, or true.
After those precedents, there are those who see an intent… false, or true.
After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe — falsely or truly — as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced… and to not distance the campaign from it.
To not distance you from it, Senator!
To not distance you… from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!
Which you should both fight with all you have!
Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!
This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.
Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.
Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.
Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.
Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.
Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.
You must remedy this.
And you must… reject… and denounce… Geraldine Ferraro.
It is time the prosecutor started connecting the damn dots. If he cannot see that the entire series of events in Jena, Louisiana, between white and black youths are interrelated then he must be deaf and blind.
I have heard no one say the black youths are innocent and should be held unaccountable but I do hear a cry from the earth itself that consistent standards be applied. White youths in incidents of violence seem to get slaps on the wrist and misdemeanor charges; black youths are charged with felonies. Why?
The use of nooses on a tree cannot be described as "funnin'." One cannot say skin color is not a major operant factor.
When will "the recent unpleasantness" become the distant unpleasantness?
I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; 10they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?’ (Revelation 6:9b-10)
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not represent the positions of any group or organization with which he may be affiliated. As one who spent decades stuffing down his opinions and emotions, I am inclined to cut loose here, which I believe is healthy, honest, and part of the process of sanctification in the long run. Politics and spirituality mingle freely here, along with theatre reviews, photography, and passionate talk about food, literature, and the human journey. If anything written here offends you, please find other blogs to read. I am here to share, not to do battle.
Pat Buchanan is an embarrassment to public discourse. 
